Gun Laws Versus Crime Rate

Blog Post 27: Rough Draft Post-Fix

There are many arguments you can side with for the topic, gun laws; pro-gun vs pro-control as they affect crime rate. The five that I picked happen to be some of the most popular arguments on the topic today. I did not put the argument that I sided with, even though it also is very popular. That being said my preferred argument is a combination of the second and third arguments with a few changes. I believe that any person, including certain people that commit crimes that are nonrelated to violent crimes, who have proven themselves capable and/or rehabilitated should be allowed any type of firearm and attachments that he or she may want including full auto weapons, suppressors, and short barreled rifles (SBR). These are all banned by the federal government since 1934. My rational behind this is that none of these banned items are that bad such as suppressors are not silent at all, a person can still hear the weapon loudly enough to still need hearing protection; SBRs are not easily concealable regardless of what the ATF thinks.

The first argument that people have for how gun laws affect the crime rates is that no one should be permitted firearms except police and military personal. This type of argument is one of the most restrictive in the world. Several notable countries such as Japan have this type of gun control law. These countries have low crime rates involving firearms which has caused many people in the United States to want the same type of laws to lower the murder rate. However, what these people don’t know or choose to ignore is that these countries, Ireland for example, do not add manslaughter to their murder rates unlike the United States which does add manslaughter to the murder rate. Their argument is that no guns result in no crime rate involving firearms.

The second argument that people have for this topic, gun laws affect crime rate, is that anyone, who is legal, should be able to own a gun if they have proper training. This type of argument is fairly supportive of people owning firearms. The people that want this type of gun law have good reasoning behind them. In a majority of states in the United States people who have their CCW (Concealed Carry Permit) have to go through several hours of training to obtain the permit to legally carry a concealed handgun. An example of this is Ohio who used to require twelve hours of training to get a permit, but today it requires an eight hour course. The regulations vary state by state, but in Ohio a person has to have six hours in class training studying the procedures and rules to carrying a gun. After you pass a test at the end of the six hours, you have to go to a range for the remaining two hours so that the instructors can see if you are safe with the handgun as well as seeing if you can hit what you are aiming at. If you prove yourself capable, the instructors will give you a certificate that needs to be taken to your local police station so that you can apply for the permit, usually takes about a month or two to get the actual license. This argument supports the point that safe, legal gun owners result in a lower crime rate.

A third popular argument for the topic, gun laws affect crime rates, is that any type of firearm should be able to be owned by anyone who has passed a background check for criminal history and mental stability. This argument is very similar to what a lot of states in the US do already. The person that wants this type of law wants to make sure that only suitable people have easy access to a firearm. We already have a similar type of system like this in the United States. The main difference between what the people want and what we have right now, is that in most states, we do not check the mental stability of people who want to buy a firearm. This is because it is extremely difficult to accurately judge the mental state of people. We do have a universal background check for any criminal history of people buying a firearm. To help this process most if not all states only allow people to buy firearms in their own state, but you can have a firearm shipped to a licensed dealer in your state so that you can buy the gun.

A fourth argument for the topic, gun laws affect crime rate, is that everyone, who can legally to buy a gun, must own at least one gun. This type of argument is one of the most supportive arguments for gun ownership. This type of person wants everyone to possess a firearm, probably a CCW as well, so that criminals will be deterred from breaking into homes committing crimes. An example of this is in a small town in Georgia called Kennesaw which unanimously passed a law in 1982 that requires the head of house have to own at least one firearm with ammunition. The officials claim this could be a main cause of the reduced crime rate in the town. However, it may be argued that the crime rates over the entire US have trended mainly down over the last twenty years.

The fifth argument for the topic, gun laws affect crime rate, is that some people want severe gun restrictions forcing people to adhere to extremely strict gun laws to limit the ownership of firearms or additions to the gun. People believe that this type of law would be one of the most effective in lowering crime rates. Certain states such as New York, California, Oregon, and Colorado have created strict gun laws that either restrict certain types of guns such as rifles like AR-15s and/or have magazine limits. They say that this helps create safety for people because it takes guns off of the streets and keeps them out of criminals’ hands. This may or may not be the case. This did not work for the Russians when massive firearm bans took place, criminals took other weapons such as knives to kill, rob, or break in to people’s houses.

These are some of the biggest arguments in the debate between pro-gun laws versus pro-control laws effect on the crime rate. This topic, like others topics, has so many sides that picking only five arguments is a difficult task. People can range anywhere from anti-gun to pro-gun laws with almost everyone having some opinion of it even if they know nothing about any of the facts